TOC takes to Tenerife for West Africa trade briefing

TOC Worldwide, organiser of the global TOC portfolio of port-centric maritime trade and supply chain events, is to stage a focused market briefing on the fast-developing West Africa region. The 2-day high-level event will take place in the Canaries island of Tenerife on 10-11 December, hosted by Puertos de Tenerife, the event organizer said Monday.

Since 2007, Africa’s real GDP growth has averaged 5% a year, far outpacing the advanced economies to become the world’s second-fastest-growing region after Asia. Container trade is rising steadily as a result and most of the world's major container carriers now have a significant presence on the West African coast. North and West Africa in particular are integrating rapidly into global container networks, with 3-4 million TEU now transported in and out of West Africa’s ports alone. While small compared with a global container trade of 500 million TEU, the fact that this volume has emerged in just 10 years from negligible amounts illustrates the dynamism of Africa - and its’ potential.

Recent changes in port governance, new private concessions, and the arrival of international terminal operating groups have all begun contributing to dramatic improvements in West Africa’s port performance and investment levels, which have so far hampered trade growth. Regional port utilisation is forecast to hit 80% over the rest of this decade, as rapid consumer growth, especially in West Africa, fuels rising imports. Nonetheless, significant challenges remain in infrastructure planning and funding, logistics skills development, hinterland connectivity and security.

“Bringing together all the key container supply chain players, TOC Market Briefing West Africa will be a focused forum to assess the region’s changing maritime trade network, the expectations of shippers and carriers in terms of logistics infrastructure, port service levels and trade security, and how the regional port and hinterland transport map will look over the next few years,” said Event Director Paul Holloway. “The Canary Islands have served for centuries as a strategic Atlantic bridge between Africa, Europe and the Americas and they retain that important role today. This makes Tenerife a great location to meet, network and debate the future for West Africa.”

As the largest of the 7 islands that make up the Canaries, Tenerife’s maritime and air facilities handle a varied traffic base, including over 6.5 million passengers and 300,000TEU of containers a year, plus cruise ships, bulk liquids and solids, vehicles and general cargo, and ships’ bunkers.

Tenerife’s container handling capacity was boosted last year with the opening of Terminal de Contenedores de Tenerife (TCT) by OHL Concesiones and Marítima Davila. Designed particularly to capture African transhipment trade, TCT joins the existing CAPSA terminals operated by Grup TCB, where further investments are also being made. Longer term, plans are progressing to develop a regional trade hub in the southern Port of Granadilla, focused on container transhipment, gas, liquid and solid bulks, supported by a logistics zone.

“As a European port in West Africa, Tenerife is well-placed to serve as a regional logistics platform,” said Airam Diaz Pastor, Commercial Director at Puertos de Tenerife. “We are very happy also that TOC chose Tenerife as the platform for this new venture and are glad to host what will be a unique and special event.”

About TOC Worldwide
For nearly 40 years, TOC Worldwide has provided the market-leading conference and exhibition forums for the global port and terminal industries and their customers. With a change of name to TOC Container Supply Chain, the TOC event portfolio is now evolving fast to attract a wider audience of container supply chain professionals. Taking place each year in the world’s four key shipping hubs – Europe, Middle East, Americas and Asia – each TOC is now a complete container supply chain event for its region, bringing together cargo owners, logistics providers, carriers, ports, terminals and other key members of the container supply chain to learn, debate, network and foster new business solutions.